


Across the Universe

by grumpyphoenix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Reverse Big Bang Challenge 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 19:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6342466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpyphoenix/pseuds/grumpyphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Benny blaze a trail through Purgatory. Dean claims he can feel a pull towards Castiel, but once they find him, Dean still feels it, leading him to a place and a time he'd long ago forgotten, and into the arms of someone he didn't even know he missed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Across the Universe

**Author's Note:**

> My most sincere thanks to Cliophilyra for being the best beta in the whole world, and pushing me to think more about writing.   
> The awesome art for this can be found here:The Arronaut

Dean and Benny blaze a bloody trail through Purgatory. They are running on instinct now, because Dean has insisted that he feels a ‘tug’, towards Castiel, that he can’t really explain and to which Benny objects at every opportunity. Those are rare at this point though, as the pull seems to be bringing them through the most densely populated areas, and there is barely time to breathe, much less to slow down enough to argue. In fact, a rough demand of ‘Where’s the Angel?” in a dangerous tone is almost the only thing Dean ever says now. It’s the last thing hundreds of folks here ever hear. Benny tries hard not to think about what happens to them after Dean decapitates them or rips them from gut to throat. It doesn’t seem to matter what special object you needed to kill them back in the world; here Dean’s homemade machete kills Djinn as well as it kills Vampire or Leviathan. Against his will, the thought creeps in to Benny’s mind that Dean is destroying souls, and Benny is doing it right along with him. 

Benny just hopes this Angel is worth the effort. Every time they kill someone they stir up the creatures around them, and it makes the possibility that he will die before he gets out of this place even more likely. There is something about Dean, though, that brings all of Benny’s repressed vampire instincts to the fore. Eventually they fight like a pack and move as one, their instincts attuned to one another. Benny begins to forget about the end game. He is just following Dean; a beacon in the haze of red. 

When they find the Angel, Dean, for all his talk about being ‘pulled’ to him, seems surprised, sliding down a hill to the stream bank where the extremely dirty and scruffy man crouches next to a stream. Benny isn’t impressed, something ugly unfurling within him. This character isn’t worth their time, isn’t worth Dean’s time. He doesn’t even seem all too happy to see Dean, but falls into step beside him when Dean tells him to, fighting without question. Benny has to give him grudging respect then: he fights like a warrior of God. 

Castiel (not even an angel Benny had heard of. Some kind of lower order, maybe?) seems to give about as much thought to the souls he is ruining as a human would to an ant they were crushing, but he sure hates Benny, and seems to resent his presence. What’s worse is that Dean wouldn’t shut up about the ‘pull’ he feels toward home, but Castiel keeps insisting that the portal to the World was in a different direction. Dean moves on, as bullheaded as he had been before, and the Angel…well. For all his protestations about being a danger to Dean, he certainly follows his orders without fail, though he has an apparently permanent, vaguely worried look on his face as they travel in what he is adamant is the wrong direction. 

When they find it, the Angel’s expression turns into a full-blown squinty-eyed suspicious frown. He stands, watching the light swirl while they argue. Dean keeps insisting that it ‘feels like home’, even while Castiel tells him that it’s not the right portal, and that jumping into it is a very bad idea. They get into a surprisingly violent yelling match, and Benny tries to intervene. During the struggle, Dean falls, grabbing onto both men for stability, causing everyone to overbalance and fall into the portal instead. 

As it turned out, the Angel was right. 

* * *

The difference between Purgatory and the regular world is, at first, just a matter of sound. His eyes might be closed or perhaps it’s just tremendously dark here, Dean isn’t sure at first, but his ears seem to be working overtime. He is aware of a million distracting noises; the creak of a wooden floor beneath him, an incessant drumming on the roof above him, his own breathing, his heart thudding in his chest. Eventually he gathers his focus enough to drag his eyes open. For a moment it seems that nothing has changed but he gradually becomes aware of a thin line of light creeping in, illuminating the edges of a door. He lurches dizzily to his feet, and flings himself inelegantly at it, scrabbling at the doorknob for purchase and stability. It opens suddenly and he stumbles out into fresh, wet, air. 

He’s standing in what may have once been a summer camp, now permanently in the off season. Choked with weeds, the grounds are a shambles, and most of the cabins are succumbing to moss and rot. On top of that, it is raining hard enough to start building an ark. There is no sign of Castiel or Benny. He could stay here in this moldy cabin, dry and clueless, or he can get soaked and find answers. He sighs and shrugs. Well. It’s been a while since he’s had a shower. Tightening his grip on his machete, he steps out into the cold deluge. 

It isn’t long before he regrets the decision. Wherever he is, it’s heading through the end of Fall, and the rain is made of huge, freezing drops. He has a hole somewhere in one of his boots, too, and overall the entire experience sucks. He stalks through cabins, in the grip of a severe déjà vu that is distracting and worrying. He knows to his bones that he has been here before; he just can’t place the memory. 

Dean yells at first for Castiel, sure he must be around a corner, or in one of the other cabins. He stalks through the shin-high grass quietly, and every time he turns to check behind him, he expects to see Benny there. He tries not to think too hard about what will happen to him here, without his body, or if it was even possible for Benny to come through the portal in the first place. 

Dean goes through each cabin he finds, getting more frustrated with each one that turns up empty. He sits on some rickety porch steps and thinks about praying to Castiel. It would be efficient, in case the portal sent him somewhere far from here. It could work, and then together they could work on finding Benny and figuring out what in the hell was going on. He knows that he should do it. He just can’t bring himself to say the words. Every night, he had prayed, and the angel was just ignoring him. It still feels like an unpleasant jolt to his stomach when he thinks about it too hard. Dean gets up. He doesn’t pray. 

As he reaches the only cabin with a light on, a roll of thunder makes him jump and swear. He ascends the worn steps carefully, trying to be as quiet as possible. A curtain of wooden beads that have seen better days has replaced the door to the cabin. Pushing it aside silently, Dean stalks into a room that he wonders how he ever forgot. He stands blinking for a moment, looking around him in confusion. 

“Okay, this has got to be a dream,” he whispers to himself, scrubbing his hand over his face. 

“I don’t think so,” says the man sitting cross legged on the threadbare rug in front of him, “I doubt I’d have sentience in your dream, and I know that _I am_ at least, a thinking being.” He opens his eyes, and looks up at Dean, tilting his head to one side. “Though, if it were, you could change everything, and that would be fantastic. So, go ahead and try to wake up.” 

“Cas?” Dean asks, wincing at the waver in his voice.

“Hello, Dean.” Cas, once and future Cas, smiles tiredly up at him.

Dean realizes belatedly that he is still holding the machete as if he’s ready to decapitate Cas, so he lowers it along with himself, sitting on the floor across from the ex-angel. He moves slowly, as if Cas might strike out at him at any moment. They lock eyes, and there’s a long uncomfortable silence. Dean clears his throat, cursing himself internally for being so stupidly nervous.

“So,” he begins, “Funny thing. I was just in Purgatory, just now.” Belatedly, he realizes that he is soaking wet, and peels his grimy coat off his shoulders, letting it sit in a miserable pool on the dusty floor behind him. 

Cas seems only mildly surprised, and nods as if it answers some kind of question lurking behind his placid blue eyes. If he understands Dean’s implicit question, he isn’t giving any outwards signs of it. 

Dean scrubs his hands over his head, sending water flying. Cas sits motionless, looking at Dean. His eyes are travelling the length and breadth of him, and the look on his face is disturbingly desperate, but he stays silent. Dean closes his eyes.

His feet feel cold and uncomfortable, confined in his wet socks and boots. He longs to take them off and let them dry. Perversely he wiggles his toes, just to feel them. It annoys him, and somehow that makes him feel better. There is nothing but deeply tense silence and the sound of rain. Castiel, _his Castiel_ , and Benny are out there somewhere.  
Cas seems to know what’s going on, and what Dean really needs right now is an explanation, so he looks back up and levels his gaze at Cas. He puts every ounce of John he can muster into the look, and Cas responds instantly, straightening his spine and widening his eyes. 

“I thought a lot after you left,” He blurts out, getting up and retrieving a colorful box on the bed, opening it and starting to roll a joint with long expert fingers. There are already a few in the box, but he seems to take comfort in the ritual, shaky hands steadying as they work. “I survived the _suicide mission_ I was sent on, and came back to find _him dead_ and you…” he makes a vanishing gesture with the joint.  
He pauses to light it and take a long hit, holding his breath for an impressive amount of time before letting the pungent smoke out. He offers it to Dean, shrugging and sitting down with it when he refuses. 

“So, I came back here, and waited to stop existing. I guess every angel involved thought you’d go back and change history.” He laughs a short, horrible laugh. “I waited a long time. Eventually my brother came and killed everyone else in the camp, but he left me here. He thought it was funny, that he and I should be the only angels on our Father’s creation while the rest of the family cowered in Heaven. He even killed the prophet. So, I have been here, tending my crops and waiting while he kills the world.” 

He falls silent, taking another hit and staring out the window at the rain. After a few minutes, Dean clears his throat and pokes him on the knee gingerly. “You’re not actually talking, you know that, right?”

Cas smiles at him suddenly, and Dean is reminded of seeing the sun through an unexpected break in the clouds. He feels warmth spread across his cheeks, and he looks at his hands, his head swimming. When Cas speaks again, there’s an amused tone to his usual growl. 

“It was a while before I realized that you didn’t fail, before I understood the truth of it. Zachariah sent you here, hoping you would fall for the lie. This was never your future, just another timeline. It explained a lot about your….aura, for lack of a better word. You were really just very out of phase, but I couldn’t quite place it. I knew you were from the past, and I guess I blamed the rest of it on the drugs. 

“Eventually I realized that if I wanted to see you again, if I wanted contact with anyone but Lucifer, I would have to find you myself. I moved all of Bobby’s books here and set to reading. After about a year, I came up with a solution. I thought that I could create a portal centered on you that I could escape from. Then I wouldn’t have to ….” He stops and looks down at the lighter in his other hand, flicking the flame on and then off repeatedly. It’s one of Dean’s oldest lighters, and it makes him a little dizzy knowing he has the same lighter in his pocket.

“But I was in Purgatory. Lemme guess, that fucked with your spell.” Dean closes his hand over Cas’ and stills his fiddling. Cas nods, looking at the floor. Dean sighs.

“We can’t fix it,” Cas supplies in a low voice, “Because you’re here, I can’t focus another portal. I mean, even if I had all the ingredients again, I couldn’t. I raided Bobby’s home for the ones I used the first time. Some of those things are one of a kind.”

Dean knows he should move his hand now. Instead, he leans closer, “Cas, you were with me in Purgatory. It is an amazingly long story that will piss me off when I tell it to you later, but for now, I need your help. Castiel and a friend named Benny were with me when I fell into the portal, but they weren’t with me when I got here. Where are they?” 

Cas’s eyes flick down at their joined hands with an unreadable expression on his face. “I don’t know, Dean. You were the intended focus for the spell, I was supposed to use it, and you were supposed to be in the world, not Purgatory. Too many things have gone wrong, I couldn’t begin to know where they are.” 

A clap of thunder outside makes Cas jump, and his hand twists under Dean’s, as if seeking to twine their fingers together. Cas is looking outside and trembling slightly; Dean is sure he doesn’t even notice what he’s doing. He slips his fingers in between Cas’s and holds his hand tightly, and the other man’s shoulders relax a little.

Dean continues as if his heart isn’t racing. “Okay. I don’t think I’m going to find them tonight, not in this weather. As for getting back home, we can make it work, Cas, there is always another way. We will hit the books again and figure it out. No, don’t shake your head at me. Trust me. Come on, where I’m from we defeated your brother, this’ll be a piece of cake.” He traces a finger under Cas’ jaw, and firmly moves his chin so he can look into the other man’s face, trying to seem more confident than he feels. Cas gives him a weak smile. Dean’s stomach clenches and he wills his own hands not to shake. _Not the time_ , he chides himself. _You don’t have time for this_. 

“That’s better. I promise we will work this out. First things first, though.” With his other hand, he plucks at his clothing with distaste. “Do you have something I can change into while this dries?” 

Cas’ smile widens into that brilliant sun-out-of-the-clouds smile. “I have a working shower, as it happens.” 

He does. As he collects things for Dean to use in the shower, Cas chatters about its construction nervously, barely catching a breath between words. The explanation, Dean feels, would light a spark in Sam’s eyes, and he’d never hear the end of it for the better part of a month. Castiel is frighteningly smart and surprisingly inventive as a mostly human, he muses. 

The shower itself is the hottest and best shower he has taken in forever. Which, okay, he has been in Purgatory for a long time. The deluge outside had taken care of all but the most stubborn grime and gore on his skin and in his hair, but it’s wonderful to actually clean it. The sweet smelling, definitely homemade shampoo that Cas gives him gets rid of the rest and makes his scalp and skin feel tingly. When he comes out, Cas has some of Other Dean’s clothing for him to put on. He’s happy for clean and dry things to wear, but feels a little odd putting them on, like he’s putting on a role he doesn’t want. He reflects that this universe’s Dean was a very fit man. He’s no slouch, but if he hadn’t just spent ages in Purgatory doing nothing but running and fighting, he probably wouldn’t fit into these clothes. 

Cas has made dinner, a canned stew that he’s supplemented with things he’s grown in his garden or caught in the woods out back. He explains that wildlife has overrun everything, now that all the people are gone. 

“My runs into town are more like safaris now; most of the roads are in total disrepair. I suspect Lucifer has been encouraging plants to grow over the remnants of civilization. There’s no Croats now either. Just silence.” Cas’ shoulders tense again, but he sets his jaw stubbornly as he dishes out the food. He has homemade wine, too, which he pours from a glass pitcher into two glasses with fading cartoon characters on the front. 

The stew is rich and good, the wine is sweet and startlingly refreshing. As he chews thoughtfully, Dean realizes that he hasn’t eaten in a long time, likely the entire time he was in Purgatory. He finds it odd that he didn’t notice, but then again, it’s probably just another stupid property of the place, like the weird dim half-light, or the muted, washed out colors. The moment he realizes how long it’s been, it gets harder and harder to eat until he feels like he’s chewing in slow motion. Eventually, it even gets hard to swallow. Now that he thinks about it, he probably didn’t sleep in Purgatory either. He starts looking around for somewhere to crash as his eyes droop and his whole body suddenly seems to weigh a ton. Cas gets up with an amused smile on his face, and leads him over to the bed. 

There’s no place else to lie down, so he lies on Cas’ bed without argument, unable to get precious about personal space when he’s so damn tired. As he slides helplessly out of consciousness, the last thing he registers is Cas removing his boots and pulling a blanket over him. Warmth spreads through him, and he sleeps. 

* * *

Dean doesn’t start researching immediately. He doesn’t do much at all, actually. When he wakes up the next morning, he rediscovers what pain feels like as his body suddenly reacts to the non-stop running and fighting he’s been doing for however long he was In Purgatory. Along with the pain comes a bone-deep weariness that comes with a malaise he just cannot ignore no matter how hard he tries to push through it. 

It rains for a week, and Dean watches it fall from the safety of a chair on the porch. Cas is quiet too, simply existing in Dean’s space. They orbit each other silently, Cas taking care of him, and Dean allowing it. His body hurts, his soul hurts. He’s worried about his own Castiel and Benny. After the first night, Dean considers seeking out another cabin to stay in, but he just can’t rouse himself to do it, so he stays with Cas again. The second night Dean also stays in the bed, and the third, and so on. Every day he tells himself that he should move, and every night he just lays down next to Cas. After a week, he doesn’t think about changing beds any more. It’s going to get cold soon anyway, and they’d both be grateful for the body heat. He stubbornly sticks to that story, even though, deep down he knows better. He loves waking up with Castiel’s scent surrounding him, he loves the weight of him once he drops off to sleep and he stops trying to keep a space between them, relaxed against Dean’s side. Dean loves the way he breathes at night. _Stop. You don’t have time for this. There is too much to do now; stop thinking about him._

A late autumn heat wave settles onto the camp at the end of the week, which Dean finds more energizing than he probably should. He wakes late every morning, stretching luxuriously in the sunlight that streams through the glass-less window of the cabin, covering the bed in a pool of warmth. Cas is gone every morning when he wakes up. He has a garden to attend to, and it’s plain to Dean that he doesn’t think they are going to make it out of here anytime soon; he’s preparing for winter and hasn’t made a move towards the pile of things he’d rescued from Bobby’s house since Dean arrived. When Dean takes up the job and starts to organize the books, Cas doesn’t say anything, but the thinly pressed line of his lips says it for him. 

Sifting through Bobby’s books is difficult. It isn’t the lore; Dean might pretend to be stupid, but he can research with the best of them when he has to. Pretending to be clueless just gets him out of a lot of long tedious nights. Mostly the problem is thinking about Bobby. There wasn’t much left of his home once the Leviathans were through with it. All his research, his notes, his personality were been gone. All that was left left was his hat, his flask, the rusted out shell of his truck and the wilderness growing over the wreckage of a place both brothers had once called home. Hell, some of these books still smelled like Bobby. Dean resolutely forces his way through it for a few days, until he decides to look at a huge tome of a thing that seems to be in the pile expressly to hold up the teetering stack of other books. A yellowed picture falls out as he is hoisting this thing up and over the other books. Looking at it curiously, he finds that it’s a picture of he and Sam as kids. He’s sitting next to a tiny Sammy on Bobby’s old smell couch reading to him from an old book, pointing to something on the page. The back of the photo is labeled simply “Sam and Dean” with the date. Dean traces Bobby’s handwriting slowly with his index finger. 

Cas finds him an hour later in Other Dean’s cabin, trying to drink himself into a coma with an alarmingly large jug of bathtub Vodka that he found stashed in a milk crate next to the bed. He gently removes it from Dean’s hands, and sternly steers him back to the cabin and into bed. Dean isn’t sure what he says to Cas then, but the ex-angel is stiff and uncommunicative for a few days. He still comes to bed though, at the end of every one of them. 

Dean lies awake every night listening to Cas breathe. He sleeps now, his grace is almost gone, and Dean finds that it makes him glad. Every time he smiles at Dean or has him taste some weird vegetable that he’s harvested, Dean can see a future that has nothing to do with Heaven or angelic politics. Dean thinks, in wee hours of the morning, that Cas feels like home. Dean’s skin feels too tight, and he itches to sling an arm over Castiel’s still form. He doesn’t. He can’t think about that now. He follows the sound of whistling and finds Cas kneeling amongst his plants with what appears to be a reclaimed shopping basket. He has a bright yellow sunhat on, a pair of seriously bedazzled sunglasses, and no shirt. With a familiar twisting sensation in his stomach, Dean stares at the muscles in Castiel’s back, at the way his worn jeans show off his ass. Fuck, he thinks. The same automatic thought he always has comes again; _I don’t have time for this_. Cas looks up and turns towards Dean with a relaxed smile on his tan face, and all of a sudden Dean thinks that, maybe all he has now is time. The thought is like revelation, and he suddenly understands why people pray. 

Cas squints at him, and stands slowly. Dean looks at him, breathing too fast. _Heart attack_ , he thinks absently, _this is how I die_. Dean panics and goes to run, but Cas catches his arm in an iron grip. 

He doesn’t die. Instead, he grabs the back of Castiel’s head with his other hand, and kisses him. For a terrifying moment, Cas doesn’t respond, and Dean tries to pull away. Then he’s being manhandled down onto the moist earth, and _Oh,_ Dean’s brain supplies ecstatically, _he’s still so **strong**_. 

Cas’ lips are on his neck, Dean’s shirt is off now, and he can feel the slide of Castiel’s sun–warmed skin over his. He arches upwards, desperate for more, his hands roaming over the broad expanse of his angel’s back. Now that he’s finally here, his brain helpfully shuts off, and all he can do is feel and touch and beg incoherently for more. He tugs at the waistband of Castiel’s pants, suddenly clumsy in his haste; the simple button fly is a mystery to him at this point. 

Cas chuckles into his ear, sending a shudder through him. He grabs both Dean’s wrists and pins them to the ground above Dean’s head effortlessly. Pulling back a little, he watches Dean struggle to reach him. Eventually Dean gives up and drops his head back onto the soil with a thunk looking up expectantly. 

Cas smiles down at him. “Bedroom, Dean. As much as sex in a garden appeals to my sense of history, let’s go home.” Dean makes an irritated noise in the back of his throat and nods reluctantly. They walk back, entwined around each other, Castiel’s hand firmly on the small of Dean’s back. The word haunts him. _Home_. 

Back in the cabin, _back home_ , Cas walks Dean backwards to the bed until his legs hit the edge, and he falls onto the bed with a laugh. Dean’s boots are gently untied and slipped off, and Cas spends a moment caressing each part of his feet with a soft, reverent touch. He stands and looms over Dean again, a thoughtful smile playing around the corners of his mouth. 

Dean raises an eyebrow and pushes himself up on both elbows, trying to see what Cas is doing. Cas pushes him gently back down and slowly traces his hands over Dean, neck to shoulders and chest, down his stomach, and teasingly along the waistband of his jeans. With long deft fingers, he eases the buttons open and hooks under Dean’s underwear, pulling both off smoothly. 

“Dean,” he says roughly, “I would like to fuck you.” 

Dean starts shaking his head, reaching up to pull Cas down for a kiss, but Cas firmly presses him back onto the bed, lowering himself down by Dean’s feet. He starts planting light, lingering kisses up Dean’s legs, pausing to suck a bruise on the inside of one thigh. With one hand on each thigh, he applies the barest pressure, spreading them so he can kneel in between. “I have been here alone for so long, thinking about you. And before that, before my brother killed him, I sat alone and thought of him.” He breathes hotly on the join between crotch and thigh, and begins licking. Dean gasps and arches upwards. “And before that, when I fell, oh so slowly,” he drags the word out, nipping the sensitive flesh and making Dean writhe. 

“Before that, I would have followed you anywhere, and I now I have you I would just like…” he licks a long excruciatingly slow stripe up Dean’s cock, pulling a tortured moan out of the other man. “to…” he licks up the other side, “Fuck you.” 

He swallows Dean slowly and deliberately, inch by inch while reaching those clever fingers underneath him, and Dean’s brain short circuits. 

* * *

Hands clenched in the soft, worn blanket, his thighs spread wide, he’s seeing stars, and he’s so full. He isn’t sure he can take any more, but he knows he doesn’t ever want it to stop. Cas is taking his time, relentlessly staving off completion for either of them with some tantric bullshit, and Dean’s overstimulated and unable to speak. First he challenged him, bucking back against his angel with a cocky grin on his face, but Cas calmly held onto his hips and stopped moving until Dean stilled himself. Later, he started begging to let him finish, but Cas only stroked his back and thighs until he felt grounded, silent and panting against the bed. Now he can only hold on, past words or coherent thought. He’s facing the window, so he can see the passage of time, and it’s getting dark now. Dean’s knees hurt, but he does not care; he floats along pleasantly in a haze of lust and need and pleasure. He knows Cas is getting close because his movements are getting more urgent, and the grip on Dean’s hips is like steel. 

A familiar soft rustling noise hits his ears. Dean makes an incredulous noise, looking up and around wildly. His eyes alight on Castiel, trenchcoat and all, standing across the room. He looks pissed, and Dean is confused. He drops his head back down to the bed and breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth like Cas has been teaching him to do so he can _get a grip on his passion, Dean,_ and it hits him like a freight train. This is his Castiel. His Castiel, seeing him like this. 

Embarrassment and fear grips him. Dean jerks violently, but Cas behind him doesn’t seem to notice, and he blinks, getting off the bed. Cas disappears. Dean turns around to face Castiel. “I’m dreaming.” 

“You are dreaming,” Castiel confirms with a thunderous look. “This is a memory dream, Dean: a very detailed memory dream.” 

Dean nods slowly, reaching down to get a sheet to wrap himself in, sitting on the bed and looking at Castiel carefully. “You’re angry.” 

Castiel squints dangerously. “I fail to see why you are surprised. Did you even look for me, or were you spending all your time…” he gestures at the bed. Dean winces. He looks at the floor. 

Castiel is suddenly right next to him, leaning close and talking in his ear. “After Sam dropped Lucifer into his jail cell, I waited for you to come to your senses, to ask me to stay with you. You chose a domestic life with Lisa instead, and I had to understand that you were not interested in romance with me. A few weeks here, and you suddenly cannot take off your clothing fast enough.” 

Dean jerks back, glaring. “Me? What about Meg? You were the one practically fucking her against the wall, and then later…” he chokes, scrambling off the bed to get further away. Castiel advances on him. Dean braces himself, starting when Castiel reaches out a hand halfway towards his face. The angel falters and lets it drop, taking a half step back. 

Dean wakes with a start next to a naked, snoring Cas, looking around frantically. No sight of the angel, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t watching. He carefully sneaks out of bed and into a pair of jeans, pulling a t-shirt over his head while he slips through the beads and gets outside. Castiel is standing outside squinting up at the sky, all scruffy beard and filthy hospital scrubs. He turns and looks at Dean. Loss and grief seem to pour off him; it stops Dean in his tracks. 

“I see that you’ve turned one of these cabins into a research area. I will be there, checking your work.” He levels a searing gaze at Dean. “Benny, since you did not ask, is safe.” He pats his arm. “I have gathered his soul into my vessel, until we can restore him to his body.” 

Dean stands motionless and speechless, watching Castiel stalk away. Every instinct tells him to go after him, tell him that he….that he… _Fuck_. He sits on the porch, head in hands. _I fucked this up so badly. How can I tell him what I can’t even voice to myself?_

* * *

“Cas, you stubborn prick, there has to be a way back!” Dean is nearly shouting at him at this point, pacing in frustration. “We are not waiting here to die.” 

Cas just checks the stove placidly. He’s making stew to put in glass bottles to keep for the winter, and it is making Dean explosively angry. They’ve been circling around this for weeks, and despite several mind blowing nights in bed, everything feels at a standstill. Even though he had already been less than helpful, Cas absolutely refuses to think about trying to return now, and he won’t explain why. Dean feels an impending sense of doom weighing on his shoulders, and no one else seems to want to _do anything about it_. It’s an unsettling feeling. 

He puts both hands on Cas and pulls him around to look in his face. “You know what Castiel said is true. Once Lucifer starts feeling the presence of another angel, he is _going to come looking_ , and he’ll kill both of us. I don’t particularly want to die, Cas. Come with us. Look through the books. We’ll figure this out together.” 

Cas shrugs him off, and Dean can see his pupils finally. Cas is amazingly high. 

Dean stalks out of the cabin and into the frigid air. He stalks through the night, hunched inside his borrowed coat, stomping across crunchy grass and up into the cabin they’ve been using as a library. 

Castiel is here as he always is, cross-legged on the floor with his trench-coat folded by his side, looking through books carefully. The arm that still contains the soul of Benny glows faintly under his shirtsleeves. “Dean,” he starts, “I have finished modifying the spell that brought us here. Your notes on the process were quite intelligent and helpful, you should be proud of the achievement. The only obstacle that remains now is that the ingredients needed are obscure and not within ready reach. I think, if I am careful, I can get them without causing too much of a stir. The only difficulty being…” 

Dean stills in surprise. It’s the most he’s said to Dean since he arrived. Dean hasn’t been able to coax more than a few words from him. He still has no idea what happened to Castiel in between the portal and the dream. Dean drops to the floor. “That I’m not over the other side, yeah it’s a problem. What about Sam? Could we point the portal at Sam?” Castiel nods slowly, “I believe so, but.” He rubs his forehead. “Dean, I don’t believe my counterpart will come with us. We cannot leave him here. Our brother will tire of this torture and come back eventually, and there will be nowhere for him to go.” 

Dean growls, “We’ll just have to make him. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him, but we have to make him.” 

Castiel looks unsure. “Regardless, if we’re going to make this portal, we need something that can point the way. Some object that is either a piece of Sam, or a token of your relationship.” 

Dean pulls his wallet out, and shows Castiel the picture he found in the book. Castiel squints at it. “It would be stronger if you had something that you brought with you from our timeline, but if that’s all we have, then it will have to do. I will go and get the things on this list.” 

He stands, and Dean puts a hand on his sleeve. They pause, staring into each other’s eyes. Dean wants to kiss him. He says, “Be careful. Please don’t let Lucifer find you.” Castiel disappears without a reply. 

“I don’t want to die,” Cas says from the doorway behind him. “But I know you, Dean Winchester. When we get within sight of Sam, you’ll stop touching me again.” “I also know that you love the Castiel from your timeline, and when you realize that…” he trails off with a sigh. Dean can’t even argue at this point. He grinds his teeth. 

Cas has something in his hands that he’s twisting, over and over again. “I know that if my brother kills me then my Father will look after me, he has so far. If I go with you, I don’t know what will happen, and I fear that I will just go back to being alone and wanting with you right there, and I don’t think I can do that again.” 

Dean sets his jaw. “I can’t give you guarantees, Cas, except that I’m not going to stop hunting. You can come with us. You can do what you want. Hell, you can buy a house and raise bees, I don’t care. Just….” 

He puts both hands on Cas’ face and tilts it up. An inner voice yammers at him to shut it down, leave it alone, but he pushes past it to kiss Cas on the lips. “Listen, Cas. I love you. I… love both of you, and it is somewhat weird, yeah. Nothing about our lives has been normal. I can’t leave you here to die. So, come back with me. We’ll figure this crap out our own way.” 

Cas twists out of Dean’s grip and looks down at his hands. Whatever is inside it is still hidden, and he puts it in his pocket. “I need to think.” He steps back, and then walks briskly off into the night. 

Dean watches the dark swallow him with a sigh. 

* * *

Dean packs the all the unnecessary books away while he waits for Castiel to return; he’s not leaving them behind if he can help it, and he can just imagine the look on Sam’s face when he produces them. He orbits Cas as he fluctuates between affectionately clingy and tensely silent, sunk into his own world. He still comes to bed every night, though, and Dean listens to him breathe all night long, fixated on each drawn breath in, each soft huff out. 

Every night Dean sits on the roof of the Library cabin and looks at the sky. With no light pollution, the sky is intense and heavy, lying over him like a blanket. Sometimes Cas climbs up with a blanket and a thermos of something hot, and they watch the stars together. Cas tells him stories about their creation and presses against his side. On those nights when he sinks into silence, the tension eases into something easy and sweet. They stay out as long as they can stand the cold, and make love, shivering in their bed. 

At least a month later Castiel returns, bloody and urgent, the sky is purple and pink with impending night, and the ground is thick with snow. 

“He found me,” Castiel supplies, unpacking the bag of items as quickly as he dares without breaking the delicate jars, old, long dried plants and a weirdly shaped skull. “The other angels aren’t hiding, they just cut us off. With his grace so badly diminished, this world’s Castiel had no way of knowing that heaven wasn’t silent.” He huffs a little, and leans on his arms. “Lucifer has my brothers all working for him, since the other archangels aren’t to be found. I’m lucky I escaped with my life. We need to do this ritual _now._ ” 

Dean nods, and turns to speak to Cas, but he’s slipped out of the room. 

Dean helps Castiel set the room up, and leaves him drawing complicated sigils, to go in search of Cas. He isn’t in any of the cabins, or on the roof of the Library. It gets dark, and then very dark, and Dean runs frantically through the camp. He can hear Castiel yelling for him from the cabin, but he can’t stop looking. He won’t leave Cas here, even if he has to carry him. The sky above them starts to turn strange colors, and he knows that all of heaven is coming. 

A faint glow leads Dean to the garden. Cas is burying something glowing in a hole he’s hacked into the frozen ground, the snow cleared in a small circle. 

“I swear, Cas, I’ll let them have me,” he growls, out of breath. “If you don’t come with me right now, I’ll pray to Lucifer myself and tell him where I am.” Cas looks up at him, and raises an eyebrow. 

Dean grinds his teeth together. “Oh, Lucifer who art destroying my plane...” Cas jumps up and claps a hand over his mouth. Dean stares daggers at him, and Cas glares back. 

“I have buried what’s left of my grace here. In the spring,” He whispers into Dean’s ear, “The dying embers of the Divine spark my father gave me will turn this tiny patch of garden into another Eden. If I am going to leave, I will leave unfettered. It will be a mark of our defiance that Lucifer can never remove. Your spell won’t work, you know. Your picture is nice, but it isn’t from your world. But this, this is eternal...” 

Castiel loops a leather cord over Dean’s head, and he feels a familiar weight rest against his chest. 

“It is linked to God, and He is singular. God here is God there.” He kisses Dean softly. “I thought that I should stay here and die with the rest of creation, but frankly, I don’t think it was a mistake that you were brought here, Dean Winchester. Who am I to refuse my Father’s gifts? Let’s get back to Castiel before the Host is upon us.” When they return, Castiel is chanting, the circle on the floor glowing blue. He raises an eyebrow at their return, and then gives an approving nod as Dean lowers the amulet into the weird skull that the angel is using as a ritual bowl. Castiel slides the ritual over to Dean to finish, picking up the duffel bag of books as if it were nothing. Cas links one arm through each man. 

As Dean finishes the spell, the portal opens. The last thing they see as white light engulfs them is the placid and slightly amused look on Lucifer’s face as he steps through the hanging beads. 

* * *

Everything is perfect. The dinner is take out, but it’s Amelia’s favorite. He’s covered the room in candles and roses, and even Riot seems to approve as he lounges sleepily on the floor. Sam is on one knee, small velvet box in hand. Amelia’s face is radiant with her smile, and Sam can see his future in it, it eases the unsettled lost feeling in his heart. 

“Amelia,” he starts, “Will you do me the honor of marr…” 

Riot starts barking, and then the wall opens up in a blaze of light. Castiel, Dean and…a second ragged looking scruffier version of Castiel stumble out of it, and Dean is yelling something about ‘ _close the portal, asshole, he’s right behind us_ ’. 

The white light winks out, leaving a giant scorch mark on the wall, and Dean turns to grin at Sam. 

“SAMMY!” he bellows, and pulls him up into a bone-crushing hug. He has an actual beard going, and he smells oddly floral. Sam returns the hug in a daze, stumbling to ask about a hundred questions, but Dean is gradually taking in the fact that Sam was kneeling on the floor, and the room, the girl, and the box. He ignores it all, though. 

“Sam,” he says slowly around a grin. “Is that a dog?” 

**Author's Note:**

> This is destined to be re-written in the future. There's a lot more that I couldn't explore with the time I had, and my amazing beta sparked some amazing ideas that I want to expound on.


End file.
